the construction of a regular story. But the most popular passages in his tale-the most highly wrought and easily remembered-are his pictures of wild Indian life and scenery. In these we have primeval innocence and intense enjoyment, in connection with the gorgeous, un checked luxuriance of nature-as if the pictorial splendour of the 'Fairy Queen' had been transported to this wild Arcadia of the west. Passing over some sermons and occasional tracts, we come to Mr. Kingsley's next novel, Two Years Ago,' published in 1857. This work is of the school or class of Alton Locke,' exhibiting contrasts of social life and character, with references to modern events, as the gold-digging in Australia, the Crimean war, and the political institutions of the United States. The story is deficient in clearness and interest, but contains scenes of domestic pathos and descriptions of external nature worthy the graphic pencil and vivid imagination of its author. Reverting again to poetry-though few of his prose pages are without some tincture of the poetical element-Mr. Kingsley, in 1858, published Andromeda, and other Poems,' a classic theme adopted from a Greek legend, and expressed in hexameter verse, carrying the reader

Over the sea, past Crete, on the Syrian shore to the southward.

The poetry of Mr. Kingsley, like that of Lord Lytton, is rather a graceful foil to his other works, than the basis of a reputation; but we quote a pathetic lyric of the sea, which, set to music by Hullah, has drawn tears from many bright eyes, and perhaps--what the author would have valued more-prompted to acts of charity and kindness:

Three Fishers went Sailing.

Three fishers went sailing out into the west,
Out into the west, as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him best.

And the children stood watching them out of the town.

For men must work and women must weep,
And there's little to earn and many to keep,
Though the harbour bar be moaning.

Three wives sat np in the lighthouse tower.

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown
But men must work and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
And the harbour bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town.
For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

Scene in the Indian Forest-Sir Amyas Paulet pursues Two of his missing Seamen.

Forth Amyas went, with Ayacanora as a guide, some five miles upward alone the forest slopes, till the girl whispered, There they are; and Amyas pushing himself gently through a thicket of bamboo, beheld a scene which, in spite of his wrath, kept hian silent, and perhaps softened, for a minute.

On the further side of a little lawn, the stream leaped through a chasm beneath overarching vines, sprinkling eternal freshness upon all around. and then sank foaming into a clear rock-basin, a bath for Dian's self On its further side the crag rose some twenty feet in height, bank upon bank of feathered ferns and cushioned moss, over the rich green beds of which drooped a thousand orchids, scarlet, white, and orange, and made the still pool gorgeous with the reflection of their gorgeousness. At its more quiet outfall it was half-hidden in huge fantastic leaves and tall flowering stems; but near the water-fall the grassy bank sloped down toward the stream, and there, on palm leaves strewed upon the turf, beneath the shadow of the crags, lay the two men whom Amyas sought, and whom, now he had found them, he had hardly heart to wake from their delicions dream.

For what a nest it was which they had found! The air was heavy with the scent of flowers, and quivering with the murmur of the stream. the humming of the colibris and insects, the cheer ul song of birds, the gentle cooing of a hundred doves: while now and then, from far away, the musical wail of the sloth, or the deep toll of the bell-bird, came softly to the ear. What was not there which eye or car could need? And what which palate could need either? For on the rock above, some strange tree, leaning forward, dropped every now and then a luscions apple upon the grass below, and huge wild plantains bent beneath their load of fruit.

There, on the stream bank, lay the two renegades from civilised life. They had cast away their clothes, and painted themselves, like the Indians, with arnotta and indigo. One lay lazily picking up the fruit which fell close to his side; the other sat, his back against a cushion of soft moss, his hands folded languidly upon his lap, giving himself up to the soft influence of the narcotic cocoa-juice, with half-shut dreamy eyes fixed on the everlasting sparkle of the water-fall

While beauty. born of murmuring sound,
Did pass i..to his face.

Somewhat apart crouched their two dusky brides, crowned with fragrant flowers, but working busily, like true women, for the lords whom they delighted to honour. One sat plaiting palm-fibres into a basket; the other was boring the stem of a huge milk-tree, which rose like some mighty column on the right hand of the lawn, its broad canopy of leaves unseen through the dense underwood of laurel and bamboo, and betokened only by the rustle far aloft, and by the mellow shade in which it bathed the whole delicious scene.

Amyas stood silent for a while, partly from noble shame at seeing two Christian men thus fallen of their own self-will; partly because-and he could not but confess that a solemn calm brooded above that glorious place. to break through which seemed sacrilege even while he felt it duty. Such, he thought, was Paradise of old; such our first parents' bridal bower! Ah! if man had not fallen, he too might have dwelt for ever in such a home-with whom? He started, and shaking off the spell, advanced sword in hand.

The women saw him, and sprang to their feet, caught up their long pocunas, and leaped like deer each in front of her beloved. There they stood, the deadly tubes pressed to their lips, eyeing him like tigresses who protect their young, while every slender limb quivered, not with terror, but with rage. Amyas paused, half in admiration, half in prudence; for one rash step was death. But rushing through the canes, Ayacanora sprang to the front. and shrieked to them in Indian. At the sight of the prophetess the women wavered, and Amyas, putting on as gentle a face as he could. stepped forward, assuring them in his best Indian that he would harm no one.

Ebsworthy! Parracombe! Are you grown such savages already, that you have forgotten your captain? Stand up, men, and salute!' Ebsworthy sprang to his feet, obeyed mechanically, and then slipped behind his bride again, as if in shame. The dreamer turned his head languidly, raised his hand to his forehead, and then returned to his contemplation. Amyas rested the point of his sword on the ground, and his

hands upon the hilt, and looked sadly and solemnly upon the pair. Ebsworthy broke the silence, half reproachfully, half trying to bluster away the coming storm.

Well, noble captain, so you've hunted out us poor fellows; and want to drag us back again in a halter. I suppose?'

I came to look for Christians, and I find heathens; for men, and I find swine. I shall leave the heathens to their wilderness, and the swine to their trough. Parracombe!'

He's too happy to answer you, sir. And why not? What do you want of us: Our two years' vow is out, and we are free men now.'

Free to become like the beasts that perish? You are the Queen's servants still, and in her name I charge you'

Free to be happy, interrupted the man. With the best of wives, the best of food, a warmer bed than a duke's, and a finer garden than an emperor's. As for clothes, why the plague should a man wear them where he don't need them? As for gold, what's the use of it where Heaven sends everything ready-made to your hands? Hearken, Captain Leigh. You 've been a good captain to me, and I'll repay you with a bit of sound advice. Give up your gold-hunting, and toiling and moiling after honour and glory, and copy us. Take that fair maid behind you there to wife; pitch here with us; and see if you are not happier in one day than ever you were in all your life before."

You are drunk, sirrah! William Parracombe! Will you speak to me, or shall I heave you into the stream to sober you ?' Who calls William Parracombe ? answered a sleepy voice. I, fool!-your captain!' I am not William Parracombe. He is dead long ago of hunger, and labour, and heavy sorrow, and will never see Bideford town any more. He is turned into an Indian now; and he is to sleep, sleep, sleep for a hundred years, till he gets his strength again, poor fellow'

Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light! A christened Englishman, and living thus the life of a beast!'

'Christ shall give thee light?' answered the same unnatural, abstracted voice. Yes; so the parsons say. And they say, too, that he is Lord of heaver and earth. I should have thought his light was as near us here as anywhere, and nearer too, by the look of the place. Look round,' said he, waving a lazy hand, and see the works of God, and the place of paradise, whither poor weary souls go home and rest, after their masters in the wicked world have used them up, with labour and sorrow, and made them wade knee-deep in blood-I'm tired of blood, and tired of gold. I'll march no more; I'll fight no more; I'll hunger no more after vanity and vexation of spirit. What shall I get by it? Maybe I shall leave my bones in the wilderness. I can but do that here. Maybe I shall get home with a few pezos, to die an old cripple. in some stinking hovel, that a monkey would scorn to lodge in here. You may go on; it'll pay you. You may be a rich man, and a knight, and live in a fiue house, and drink good wine, and go to court, and torment your soul with trying to get more, when you 've got too much already plotting and planning to scramble upon your neighbour's shoulders, as they all did-Sir Richard, and Mr. Raleigh, and Chichester, and poor dear old Sir Warham, and all of them that I used to watch when I lived before. They were no happier than I was then; I'll warrant they are no happier now. Go your ways. captain; climb to glory upon some other backs than ours, and leave us here in peace, alone with God and God's woods, and the good wives that God has given us, to play a little ike school children. It's long since I've had play-hours; and now Ill be a little child once more, with the flowers, and the singing birds, and the silver fishes in the stream, that are at peace, and think no harm, and want neitaer clothes, nor money, nor knighthood, nor peerage, but just take what comes; and their heavenly Father feedeth them, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these-and will be not much more feed us, that are of more value than many sparrows?'

And will you live here, shut out from all Christian ordinances?'

'Christian ordinances ! Adam and Eve had no parsons in Paradise. The Lord was their priest, and the Lord was their shepherd, and he'll be ours too. But go your ways, sir, and send up Sir John Brimblecombe, and let him marry us here church fashion-though we have sworn troth to each other before God already-and let him give us the Holy Sacrament once and for all, and then read the funeral ser vice over us, and go his ways, and count us for dead, sir-for dead we are to the

wicked worthless world we came out of three years ago. And when the Lord chooses to call us, the little birds will cover us with leaves, as they did the babies in the wood, and fresher flowers will grow out of our graves, sir, than out of yours in that bare Northam churchyard there beyond the weary, weary, weary sea.'

His voice died away to a murmur, and his head sank on his breast. Amyas stood spell-bound. The effect of the narcotic was all but miraculous in his eyes. The sustained eloquence, the novel richness of diction in one seemingly drowned in sensual sloth, were in his eyes the possession of some evil spirit. And yet he could not answer the Evil One. His English heart, full of the divine instinct of duty and public spirit, told him that it must be a lie: but how to prove it a lie? And he stood for full ten minutes searching for an answer, which seemed to fly further and further off the more he sought for it...

A rustle! a roar! a shriek! and Amyas lifted his eyes in time to see a huge dark bar shoot from the crag above the dreamer's head, among the group of girls. A dull crash, as the group flew asunder; and in the midst, upon the ground, the tawny limbs of one were writhing beneath the fangs of a black jaguar, the rarest and most terrible of the forest kings. Of one? But of which? Was it Ayacanora? sword in hand, Amyas rushed madly forward: before he reached the spot, those tortured limbs were still.

And

It was not Ayacanora; for with a shriek which rang through the woods, the wretched dreamer, wakened thus at last, sprang up and felt for his sword. Fool! he had left it in his hammock! Screaming the name of his dead bride, he rushed on the jaguar, as it crouched above its prey, and seizing its head with teeth and nails, worried it, in the ferocity of his madness. like a mastiff dog.

The brute wrenched its head from his grasp, and raised its dreadful paw. Another moment, and the husband's corpse would have lain by the wife's. But high in air gleamed Amyas'a blade; down, with all the weight of his huge body and strong arm, fell that most trusty steel; the head of the jaguar dropped grinning on its victim's corpse:

And all stood still who saw him fall,

While men might count a score.

O Lord Jesus,' said Amyas to himself. thou hast answered the devil for me! And this is the selfish rest for which I would have bartered the rest which comes by working where thou hast put me!'

They bore away the lithe corpse into the forest, and buried it under soft moss and virgin mould and so the fair clay was transfigured into fairer flowers, and the poor gentle untanght spirit returned to God who gave it. And then Amyas went sadly' and silently back again, and Parracombe walked after him, like one who walks in sleep. Ebsworthy, sobered by the shock, entreated to come too; but Amyas forbade him gently. No, lad; you are forgiven. God forbid that I should judge you or any man. Sir John shall come up and marry you; and then, if it still be your will to stay, the Lord forgive you. if you be wrong; in the meanwhile, we will leave with you all that we can spare. Stay here, and pray to God to make you, and me too. wiser men.'

And so Amyas departed. He had come out stern and proud, but he came back again like a little child.

The other works of Canon Kingsley are Miscellanies' from 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1859; The Water Babies,' 1863; Hereward, the Last of the English,' 1866; The Hermits,' 1867; How and Why,' 1869; 'At Last, a Christmas in the West Indies,' 1871; Health and Education,' 1874. Mr. Kingsley was made Canon of Chester in 1869, which he resigned in 1873, when made Canon of Westminster. This popular author and good man died at his parsonage of Eversley, Hampshire, January 23, 1875, and was interred in Westminster Abbey.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

In the real as distinguished from the ideal school of fiction, CHARLOTTE BRONTE (afterwards Nicholls), by her tale of Jane Eyre,' attained immediate and remarkable popularity. Its Yorkshire scenes and characters were new to readers, and the whole had the stamp of truth and close observation. The life of Charlotte Brontë was one of deep and painful interest. Her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontëwho survived to a great age, outliving all his gifted children-was a native of the county Down in Ireland. One of a family of ten, the children of a small farmer, Patrick Brontë saw the necessity for early exertion. At the age of sixteen he opened a school, then became a tutor in a gentleman's family, and afterwards, at the age of twentyfive, entered himself of St. John's College, Cambridge. Having taken his degree, he obtained a curacy in Essex, whence he removed to Yorkshire-first to Hartshead, near Leeds. At Hartshead he married a gentle, serious young Cornish woman, Maria Branwell, by whom in little more than six years he had six children. In 1820 the family moved to another Yorkshire home, Mr. Brontë having obtained the living of Haworth, four miles from Keighley. The income of the minister, £170 per annum, might have sufficed for humble comfort, but the parsonage was bleak and uncomfortable-a low oblong stone building, standing at the top of the straggling village on a steep hill, without the shelter of a tree, with the churchyard pressing down on it on both sides, and behind a long tract of wild moors. Charlotte Brontë thus describes the scene:

Description of Yorkshire Moors.

A village parsonage amongst the hills bordering Yorkshire and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is not grand-it is not romantic; it is scarcely striking. Long low moors, dark with heath, shut in little valleys, where a stream waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys: it is only higher up, deep in amongst the ridges of the moors, that Imagination can find rest for the sole of her foot; and even if she finds it there, she must be a solitude-loving raven-no gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her, she must bring it inborn: these moors are too stern to yield any product so delicate. The eye of the grazer must itself brim with a 'purple light,' intense enough to perpetuate the brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the rare sunset-smile of June; out of his heart must well the freshness that in later spring and early summer brightens the bracken, nurtures the moss, and cherishes the starry flowers that spangle for a few weeks the pasture of the moor-sheep. Unless that light and freshness åre innate and self-sustained, the drear prospect of a Yorkshire moor will be found as barren of poetic as of agricultural interest: where the love of wild nature is strong, the locality will perhaps be clung to with the more passionate constancy, because from the hill-lover's self comes half its charm.

The population of Haworth and its neighbourhood was chiefly engaged in the worsted manufacture. They were noted for a wild law. less energy, and were divided by sectarian differences. The Brontë family kept aloof unless when direct service was required, and the minister always carried a pistol with him on his walks. He was an eccentric, half-misanthropical man, with absurd notions on the sub